Thursday 16 of September 2021 | 21:00-21:45 | Patio CCCC

Jazz in Progress Festival presents a completely new group of Greek jazz scene with its new album. Menios Gounaris, pianist and composer, with the electric quarter Flood, who’s first album called First Drop was released in September 2020, are coming to introduce us his new one, called Set in motion, that will be released in the autumn of 2021. The album is inspired and recorded all during the pandemic. It tries to imprint the need of action and creation, in the way its tittle shows. Menios Gounaris on piano, with the talented musicians Grigoris Theodoridis on double bass and Panagiotis Kostopoulos on percussion present his personal sound from the space of modern jazz.

Cast:
Piano: Menios Gounaris
Double bass: Grigoris Theodoridis
Percussion: Panagiotis Kostopoulos

Bio

Menios Gounaris | piano
Menios Gounaris was born in Agrinio in 1983. He studied classic piano and music theory with Konstantinos Kotinis in the conservatory of Contemporary Art. Since 2003 to 2006 he attended jazz piano lessons in the Municipality Conservatory of Patra with Giorgos Metaxas. During the period 2008-2010he studied jazz piano and harmony with Stavros Lantsias. At the same period, he created his own trio, with which he made performances in several places in Greece.  In 2011 he continued his studies at the Conservatory of Utrecht with Bert van den Brink and Randal Corsen. He has collaborated with artists like Kostis Maravellias, Kostas Livadas, Penny Baltantzi, Zoi Papadopoulou, Matoula Zamani and he has taken part as a pianist in theatrical performances, under the direction of Thodoris Gonis. He is a permanent member of Takis Barberis Group. In 2020 the album of the group Flood, called First Drop was released in 2020.

Grigoris Theodoridis | double bass
Grigoris Theodoridis is a professional jazz musician from Agrinio, Greece who plays double bass. Despite all the difficulties of the Greek countryside, he achieved to play music professionally and to soak into jazz and interpretated music. In the age of 17 he moved to Athens, where he studied jazz and classic double bass. In 2011 he moved to Holland, to study in the Royal Conservatory of the Hague receiving a diploma of jazz performance/double bass. He has performed in several music halls and jazz festivals all around Europe and in New York, Tokyo and Shanghai as well. In New York he became a student of Ron Carter and Orlando le Fleming. He has also attended seminars and lectures of Larry Grenadier, Joe Martin, Brad Mehldau, Jeff Ballard, Enrico Pieranunzi, Mark Guiliana, John Patitucci, Vijay Iyer and David Liebman. He has Collaborated with many of the best jazz musicians in Europe, like Juraj Stanik, Eric Ineke, Rik Mol, Attila Gyarfas, Thomas Maasz. The last two are members of his own trio. In cooperation with the Japanese pianist Mikiko Nagatake, they work on the recording of his first personal album. From 2011 to 2016 he was the organizer and artistic director of Agrinio Jazz festival. He has experience in teaching the bass, jazz harmony-history and he loves teaching the combos. He also worked as a bass player for Royal Caribbean and Holland America Lines. This summer he created an interpretating trio with the saxophonist Dimitris Pantelias and the drummer Stefanos Chitiris. With this trio, they toured around Crete.

Panagiotis Kostopoulos  I percussion
Panagiotis Kostopoulos was born in Patra in1991. In the age of 13 he started drums lessons with Kostas Kondilis and the next years with Vaggelis Goumas and Sotiris Douvas. In 2013 he was accepted on a scholarship in the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music of Bew York. Soon he became the drummer in the band of Billy Harper, Billy Harper Voices. There he collaborated with Jazzmeia Horn and Charenee Wade. In 2015 that he came back to Greece, he started collaborating with the top names of Greek jazz scene and several music groups. He has collaborated with the Greek Radio and Television National Orchestra and with his quintet, he made an appearance in the Jazz Panorama at the Onassis Stegi in Athens. He has also cooperated with the American guitarist Freddie Bryant and the famous singer Barbara Luna. As a member of many and different groups, with a long discography during his short, so far, route, he is considered as one of the most talented and promising musicians of his generation.

Human Touch
The trio Human Touch of David Lynch on saxophone, Stavros Lantsias on percussion and Giotis Kiourtsoglou on bass, keeps on remaining one of the most famous and recognised groups in all Greece for more than twenty-five years and travelling the music lover audience of our country and not only, with the same consistency and the same dynamics. It remains always a group that keeps its own loyal and dedicated audience. It has been called abroad as The Best Kept Musical Secret in the Balkans and it’s one of the most important and recognizable jazz groups in Greece. The three musicians who consist of it, acclaimed and famous in Greece and abroad many years now, have made their own personal and common great route. Having acquired their unique identity in the music field, they move in a wide range of rhythms and timbres. Human Touch have made appearances in every great festival in Greece and many important festivals abroad, especially in Europe, having enthusiastic audiences. Nonetheless they have recorded so far only two CD. The first one with their own name, Human Touch in 1997 and Movin’ in 2004.

Cast:
Saxophone:  David Lync
Bass: Giotis Kiourtsoglou
Percussion, Piano: Stavros Lantsias
Sound engineer: Giannis Toundas

Bio
David Lynch I saxophone
David Lynch is a respected composer and performer who lives and works in Greece during the last 25 years. Of Irish and Eastern European ancestry, he was born and raised in Los Angeles. He studied jazz music with James Moody, Charles Lloyd, Ralph Bowen and John Coltrane’s associate, Garvin Buschell. He started his career by playing in several clubs and studios with a variety of big swing orchestras and at a very young age he received music awards and scholarships, continuing his studies at Dick Grove Music Workshops.
At age 21, his need to broaden his musical and personal horizons brought him to Europe. His insatiable quest for new and creative forms of expression brought him in contact with some of the most outstanding musicians, writers and singers from many countries and from different musical cultures. After an extended period of traveling, he settled in Athens, where the environment seemed right for introspection and exploration.
David Lynch, since has played on hundreds of albums, numerous movie soundtracks and has co-founded several bands (ISKRA, Special Request, Human Touch, Duo Faros, The Missing Lynch, The Heavy Metal Brass Band). In 2003, along with Yiorgos Kaloudis, he co-founded Duo Faros, an innovative duet which creates on-the-spot loops and spontaneous in-depth arrangements.
In 2004 he recorded new arrangements of Manos Hadjidakis’ songs, with Elli Paspala as a singer and Blaine Reinenger, Alkinoos Ioannidis, Human Touch and Raining Pleasure as guests. In 2006 he started working on The Missing Lynch project, with new compositions and original songs. Recently, mainly because of his collaboration with saxophonist Oprica Ivancea, of Roma musicians’ ancestry, he founded The Heavy Metal Brass Band, a jazz and Greek brass ensemble.
As a solo artist, David Lynch has released three CD’s: Lit’l Song, Wandering Home, which was recorded live at the Athens Concert Hall, and Music with a View, for which he received the 1st Composition Award of the Athinorama Theatre Awards in 2002. He has also written music for film, theatre, radio, television and dance. He has played with Arturo Sandoval, Trilok Gurtu, Arild Anderson, Milcho Leviev, The Temptations, Barry White, Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Joe Higgs, as well as with Haig Yazdjian, Eleni Karaindrou, Elli Paspala, Alkinoos Ioannidis, Thanos Mikroutsikos, George Dalaras, Pavlos Sidiropoulos, Kyriakos Sfetsas and others.
Of major importance in his musical journey was his collaboration with the late traditional clarinettist Vassilis Soukas. This experience, and its lasting influence, was the crossroad leading David Lynch deeper in his own spirit of “Greekness” and in the discovery of his internal “world music”.

Giotis Kiourtsoglou | bass
Yiotis Kiourtsoglou was born in Kozani, Greece in 1965. He studied electrical engineering at the State Technological Institute and jazz theory and harmony at the Contemporary music school in Thessaloniki. He continued his music education studying electric bass at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles (1987- 89), receiving the MI scholarship award, and was nominated for outstanding player and most improved student of the year award. His instructors included Garry Willis, Bob Magnuson, Carl Schoeder, Jeff Berlin and Scot Henderson. As a recording artist, he made several albums with Electric Jazz Trio (with Manny Boyd and Danny Hayes), Exit, Iasis, Tillman Ambient Groove, Lauenen and Human Touch, being a founding member of most of the above. He also played as a guest artist on recordings with David Lynch, Marcos Alexiou, Takis Barberis with Trilok Gurtu. He performed in Greece, Cyprus, the USA, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Israel and the U.K. in international festivals and places such as the Acropolis Theatre, Lincoln Centre, the Athens Concert Hall and the ancient theatres of Epidaurus and Koureion. He collaborated with many artists, including John Stubblefield, Billy Hart, Manny Boyd, Danny Hayes, Interbalcan Orchestra, Dionysis Savopoulos, Alkinoos Yioannides and the Athens Symphony Orchestra as soloist.
He composes music for dance, theatre and cinema productions as well as for his own Jazz group, Human Touch. He currently teaches at the Nakas conservatory in Athens.
www.yiotiskiourtsoglou.gr

Stavros Lantsias | percussion, piano
Stavros Lantsias was born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1966. He studied classical piano and music theory in the Greek Conservatory of Nicosia with the teacher Pitsa Spiridaki. In 1986 he moved in Boston-United States to continue his studies at Berklee College of Music where he graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Music Degree in Arranging. He also attended composition lessons of cinema music. He also received the "Count Basie Jazz Masters Award for pianists 1989" and the "Quincy Jones Jazz Masters Award for arrangers 1990". After Berklee he continued his jazz piano studies with highly respected educator Charlie Banacos. Since 1992 that he moved to Athens, Stavros Lantsias is in high demand as a pianist and arranger, always active performing with some of Greece’s most respected and acclaimed artists on discography, tv and theatre. Among them are Dionisis Savopoulos, Elli Paspala, Alkinoos Ioannidis, Orfeas Peridis, Eleni Karaindrou, Nikos Xidakis, Charis Alexiou, Giorgos Dalaras, Christos Thiveos, Giannis Charoulis and Eleni Vitali.
One of his most important projects is "Human Touch", a group he has formed with long time collaborators David Lynch and Yiotis Kiourtsoglou. In their first studio recording apart from composing and playing the piano Stavros expands his playing with Drums, Percussion and Acoustic Guitar. In 1999 Stavros Lantsias signed a recording contract with Warner Music Greece and since has released two solo albums "Return" (Nov. 1999) and "The journey of a note" (April 2002). In these albums he demonstrates his compositional and orchestration skills performing with both jazz and classical ensembles. His upcoming cd release is an orchestral suite entitled "Diary of Dreams" originally commissioned by Patra cultural capital of Europe 2006. In 2008 he released the CD-DVD The Core, from live performances with Dionysis Savopoulos and Giotis Kiourtsoglou. Stavros Lantsias is also active in music education conducting seminars and master classes in music composition, arranging and piano improvisation.

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